Thank god it’s Monday. This week’s indie spotlight is Squad’s physics sandbox and space program management simulator: Kerbal Space Program.

The game, built by a team of only 26 people, is in Steam Early Access. It’s first playable alpha was released June 24th, 2011. The current build is version 0.23.5 which includes the asteroid redirect mission formed in a partnership with NASA. There is also a free demo available on the game’s website.

Booting up the game brings me to the title screen where I’m presented with the choice of career mode, sandbox mode, or scenarios. The in-game scenarios put you in specific situations that are quite fun to play around with. The career mode puts tech and features behind an unlock tree that you must earn access to by conducting missions to earn science points. Right now though, the sweet spot is in the infinite possibilities in the sandbox mode.

Whichever mode you choose will get you in the game, where you can then visit the different facilities in the Space Center on the planet Kerbin. These different facilities include the Vertical Assembly Building, Spaceplane Hangar, the Runway, the Launchpad, the Tracking Station, and the Astronaut Training Complex.

The amount of missions I can accomplish, and amount of vehicles I can build in this game are insane. Should I build a functioning unmanned solid-fuel rocket? That’s quickly accomplished. Click three components together, ready the launchpad, hit the spacebar and POW: the rocket is airborne! Getting my feet wet is that easy in this game. A good bonus is the default vehicles included in the game for people who aren’t rocket scientists or who are more interested in piloting spaceships over building them.

The real magic shows up when I try to add new objectives and challenge myself. If I want to add manned flight to my masterpiece of a rocket, I’ll need a manned capsule. I can just click one of those onto the previous rocket, and now it’s a manned version of that rocket. With this simple setup, I can fling a Kerbal up to about 10000 meters. Making the simplest manned rocket possible means that I coldy sent that brave Kerbal on a one way trip to doom, as I declined to include a parachute in this build. I chuckle at the small cloud of dust that my first manned flight raises on impact. No survivors. No worries either, because another brave Kerbal quickly volunteers for the next mission. This time I will be less of a monster and add a parachute, so the odds of the next Kerbal’s survival increase.

What good is sending a Kerbal only 10000 meters up into the air? I need to get on the next level and see if my astronaut can touch the vacuum of space. A lot of complexity is ready to greet me here, as experimentation leads me to realize that no single solid-fuel rocket will get a Kerbin out of the soupy atmosphere. It’s time to add in liquid-fuel rockets. An advantage of liquid fuel tanks is that I can stack them like soda cans and they will share oxygen and rocket fuel across all tanks. Now I just add in a liquid fuel engine, and my little Kerbal astronaut has everything he needs to get out of the atmosphere.

Finally, mastering stages will give you all the tools needed to conduct missions that mimic historic space missions. At this point, the only weak link is my flimsy grasp of orbital mechanics. But if I stay the course and learn, I will not be in my own way anymore.

Many more challenges await await me: attempting interplanetary travel, building a space station out of parts from multiple launches, and even attempting to build a single-stage-to-orbit Spaceplane. The only limits are my imagination and my poor knowledge of rocket science.

This game holds a special place in my heart. It feels like LEGOs: it’s easy to pick up and play without having any clue what’s going on, and I quickly begin to learn bits here and there. I find myself getting better and better at it. There’s something immensely satisfying when I finally put a capsule into orbit after losing twenty Kerbals to mishaps, mistakes, and poor planning. I’ve put in my time and learned from many tutorials. I can land a Kerbal safely on the Mün, the satellite that orbits the planet Kerbin. I have never had a game teach me so much about real life and real science. I’ve slowly become an amateur rocket scientist. I will follow this game’s development very closely.

 

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Dustin LaRoe is one of MONG’s new writers. You can follow him at Twitter, Facebook, or IGN. His Gamertag and Steam ID are: Guy 105.